Committee tables diversion bill

The New Mexico Senate Finance Committee tabled a bill on Tuesday that would hand financial oversight to the state Legislature of the New Mexico Unit Fund, currently being used to fund the proposed, controversial diversion of the Gila River.

Senate Bill 340 is a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by local District 28 Sen. Howie Morales. Its goal is to require the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission to obtain legislative authorization before releasing any money from the New Mexico Unit Fund. It also requires an economic benefit report of the diversion project configuration before any money at all can be used from the fund.

Environmentalist opponents to the Gila River diversion have long asserted that the fact that there has not already been an environmental benefit reported proves that no economic benefit is expected. Some of those regular opponents spoke at the Finance Committee meeting, including local Gila Resources Information Project. In addition to environmental organizations, even the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government spoke in favor of SB 340. GRIP Director Allyson Siwik related a prepared list of frequently asked questions from her organization to the committee but weighed in more fully later.

“In its bill analysis and in repeated testimony, the ISC has asserted that the time it would take for the ISC to produce answers to the questions in SB 340 would cause New Mexico to miss the December 2019 deadline for a Gila Diversion project,” she wrote in a release. “In other words, the ISC is admitting it cannot now answer the basic questions posed by the bill.”

The New Mexico Unit Fund was created on paper through the Arizona Water Settlements Act. The act offered $66 million for water projects — diversion or no — in southwestern New Mexico. It offered an additional $62 million, however, if the ISC decided to pursue a diversion of the Gila and/or San Francisco rivers or tributaries. The ISC did so in November 2014, kicking off the formation of the New Mexico Unit of the Central Arizona Project Entity and early designs of the diversion. Now the project must make it past intensive National Environmental Policy Act assessments before December 2019.

SB 340 was approved in the Senate Conservation Committee before making it to Senate Finance, where it was temporarily tabled. Sen. Morales said the committee wanted the ISC, the New Mexico CAP Entity and bill sponsors to take time to discuss a possible compromise. Given the just four days left in the 2017 legislative session, though, Morales doubts it will move forward, in this session at least.

“There are four days left and it would have to make it through the full process in the House,” he said. “But, I think it opens up the conversation so that we can make headway during the interim.”

Between legislative sessions, legislators from both houses meet in various joint committees. During that period, many bills for the next full session are molded into their final shape.

CAP Entity Director Anthony Gutierrez said he was confident that if certain conditions are met, those discussions during the interim can yield an agreement. He said that his organization would be happy to provide all the information the bill requires, but cannot condone the state Legislature having control of the funds.

“The reporting, being transparent about what we’re doing, giving reports to whatever committees have to do with this — we want that,” he said. “We agree with the accountability and transparency portion. We want to give them information because the information they have received so far just isn’t the truth, or the whole truth. But we don’t agree with producing that information and then having the ability to say we cannot move forward with the project. Because we have a federal act that says we can move forward with the project.”

For opponents, and Morales, this bill was about increasing government transparency, which they feel has been lacking throughout the diversion process.

“The transparency issues are real and always have been with this project,” Siwik said. “Look, it took Senator Heinrich intervening to make ISC to hand over original irrigation use reports. It took years of fighting to get the CUFA [Consumptive Use and Forbearance Agreement] model. That data belongs to the public. They were created with public funds.”